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got up right smart after Tidy went away. She'd had six children sold from her afore, and she set stores by her and me, 'cause we was girls, and we was all she had left, too. Tidy was pooty as a flower; and dat's just what your fadder, Massa Carroll, sold her for. My poor mudder-- how she cried and took on! but then she grew more settled like. She said she'd gi'n her up for de good Lord to take care on. She said, if he could take care of de posies in de woods, he certain sure would look after her, and so she left off groaning like; but she's never got over that sad look in her face. 'Oh,' says she to me, says she, 'Annie, do call dat leetle cretur's name Tidy,-- mebbe 'twill make my poor, sore heart heal up;' and so I will."
"So I would, Annie; yes, so I would," said the Master soothingly. "So I would, if 'twill be any comfort to poor old Marcia,--clever old soul she is. She was my mammy, and I was always fond of her. She has trotted me on her knee, and toted me about on her back, many an hour. I must go down to the quarters this very day, and see if she has things comfortable. She's getting old, and we must do well by her in her old age. And you, Annie, you mustn't mind those other things. We mustn't borrow trouble. And we can't help it, you know; and we mustn't cry and fret for what we can't help. What's the use? It don't do any good, you see, and only makes a bad matter worse. Must take things as they come, in this world of ours, Annie;" and the Master thought thus to assuage the tide of bitter recollection in the breast of his down-trodden bond-woman, and divert her mind from the painful future before her and her darling child. In vain. The tears still fell over the brow of the baby, flowing from the deep fountain of sorrow and tenderness that springs forth only from a mother's heart.
"Oh, Massa," she ventured timidly to say amid her sobs, "please don't never part baby and me."
"Be a good girl, Annie," said he, "and mind your work, and don't be borrowing trouble. We'll take good care of you. You've got a nice baby, that's a fact,--the smartest little thing on the whole plantation; see how well you can raise her now."
The fond heart of the trembling mother leaped back again to its happiness at the praise bestowed upon her baby; and taking up the little blossom, she laid it with pride upon her bosom, murmuring, "Years of good times we'll have, sweety, afore sich dark days come,-- mebbe they'll never come to you and me."
Alas, vain hope! Scarcely a single year had passed, when one day she came to the cot to look at the little sleeper, and lo, her treasure was gone! The master had found it convenient, in making a sale of some field hands, to THROW IN this infant, by way of closing a satisfactory bargain.
None can tell, but those who have gone through the trying experience, how hard it is for a mother to part with her child when God calls it away by death. But oh, how much harder it must be to have a babe torn away from the maternal arms by the stern hand of oppression, and flung out on the cruel tide of selfishness and passion! Let us weep, dear children, for the poor slave mothers who have to endure such wrongs.
I will not undertake to describe the distress of this poor woman when the knowledge of her loss burst upon her. It was as when the tall tree is shivered by the lightning's blast. Her strong frame shook and trembled beneath the shock; her eye rolled and burned in tearless anguish, and her voice failed her in the intensity of her grief. For hours she was unable to move. Alone, uncomforted, she lay upon the earth, crushed beneath the weight of this unexpected calamity.
"Leave her alone," said the master, "and let her grieve it out. The cat will mew when her kittens are taken away. She'll get over it before long, and come up again all right."
"Ye mus' b'ar it, chile," said Annie's poor, old mother, drawing from her own experience the only comfort which could be of any avail. "De bressed Lord will help ye; nobody else can. I's so sorry for ye, honey; but yer poor, old mudder can't do noffin. 'Tis de yoke de Heavenly Massa puts on yer neck, and ye can't take it off nohow till he ondoes it hissef wid his own hand. Ye mus' b'ar it, and say,